


Lost In The Storm

by howelllesters



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Food mention, Funeral Mention, M/M, Mild Language, Minor Character Death, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, phil thinks dan is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-09 22:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7819477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howelllesters/pseuds/howelllesters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil’s soulmate mark is black. It sits on his heart and spreads outwards like a stain, a stain that reminds him every day of the bitter truth. No one wants to accept what it really means, but Phil has. Phil has come to terms with it. Until he meets Dan. Dan, who claims to be his soulmate, with a soulmate mark Phil is unable to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost In The Storm

Phil Lester had never considered himself _normal_.

Maybe it was the sixth sense he was certain he possessed, or maybe it was just too much time spent watching television shows about vampires in his youth, but he’d always felt he saw more of the world than anyone else. Whether it be something lurking in the shadows or a ghostly trail on his neck that made the hairs on his arms stand up, Phil had never doubted that he was sharing his space with supernatural beings too.

He was very okay with that, and told everyone as much. Being friends with a vampire? A werewolf? What could possibly be better than that?

As time wore on though, so did Phil’s ideas. Between his parents and teachers insisting he just had a very vivid imagination, and his desire to actually fit in and make friends at secondary school, Phil learned to quash his sense of wandering amongst the supernatural, until he too believed he’d just been a creative child who learned to see sense.

And that was where he was now.

At twenty five, Phil’s ideas of there being otherworldly creatures out there had long disappeared, and the odd feeling he got of not being alone was simply brushed off as him being silly. He was just about to co-produce his fifth film, and this was a feature-length affair that they were hoping to take to a film festival at some point. He didn’t have the time nor the inclination to consider the supernatural, so he simply didn’t.

Today actually marked Phil’s twenty fifth birthday, and while being halfway to thirty should have filled him with dread, he was far more concerned with the fact that most of his family were currently crowded round him peering at his bare chest.

“Perhaps it’s indigo.”

“Maybe it’s a very, very dark purple.”

“It might just be that it’s still developing, and it will lighten over time-”

“It’s black,” Phil cut in eventually, tired of their antics.

The source of their debate lay on the left side of Phil’s chest, where his soulmate mark should have finally bloomed today to reveal a little something that would help him find the person he was destined to spend his life with.

Phil had known, for quite a long time, that the big reveal on his twenty fifth birthday was going to be a disappointment. The stain on his chest had been something he’d kept to himself for a while, and once his parents had found out, they too had decided to let it stay a secret until absolutely necessary, just in case it changed. Phil had never expected it to change though, and today had proved him right. All that had happened over the years was that the stain had grown, spreading outwards and deeper, so that the colour couldn’t be missed.

Most people’s soulmate marks were lovely.

Although it was very possible for them to change, many started to see their marks developing from around their early twenties. Tiny patches of colour, in all shapes and sizes, appeared across the skin, as a guide to help unite the most powerful of relationships. It was believed that the colour had relevance to a soulmate, and explained why Phil’s father had a red stripe down one finger and his mother had a blue smudge just behind her ear; when they’d first met, his father’s vivid blue eyes had blown away his mother, who had freshly dyed her hair a shocking scarlet.

Upon reaching the age of twenty five, the mark settled in, assuming its final form and forever leaving you with a reminder of your soulmate. It should, therefore, have been a happy occasion, but as Phil had anticipated, it was not.

His mark was black.

At first, when Phil noticed the darkening patch over his chest… well at first he’d assumed he was dying, before realising it was probably his soulmate mark and his heart wasn’t actually trying to burst out of his chest. Initially, the mark had been fairly dark, but Phil hadn’t been worried. Perhaps his soulmate had dark hair, maybe they enjoyed dark clothing or had a dark sense of humour. It could have meant anything, and Phil didn’t give it a second thought.

The years went by though, and it seemed to grow darker every day, until Phil felt like his mark had taken the form of an actual shadow, casting a cloud over every aspect of his life. The shape of it didn’t do much to help, or rather, lack thereof. It looked like someone had shot an arrow straight at his heart, and the blackness had seeped out and settled on his skin in a small but definite splodge of ebony.

So perhaps Phil’s imagination still had a tendency to wander from time to time.

No one had any doubt what his mark meant, even if no one wanted to say it loud. Figuring if he at least got it over and done with, they could go back to enjoying cake - and he could finally put his shirt back on - Phil heaved a sigh and then said the words.

“My soulmate is dead. My mark is black, my soulmate is dead, and yes, happy birthday to me.”

He said the words with a resigned air, even as most of his family members recoiled in horror. He’d accepted the reality of his fate a long time ago, shed many a midnight tear over the person destined for him that he’d never even had chance to meet. Time did much to soothe the pain, the strange grief for a friend he’d never known, and Phil had learned to get on with his life.

Not having a soulmate didn’t mean he couldn’t ever make meaningful relationships with anyone else, and the mark on his chest proved that at some point, there had been someone that the universe had created especially for him, and no one could take that away from him.

“Phil,” his cousin began softly, the first one who dared to speak, but he just glanced up at her pitying eyes and shook his head. He certainly didn’t want pity.

“It’s fine,” he shrugged, and he wasn’t lying. “I’m okay with it.”

And really, he was.

—

In the months that followed his twenty fifth, Phil was forced to recount his sorry tale to what felt like everyone he’d ever encountered.

Soulmate marks were such an important aspect of everyone’s lives, and so they were all eager to know what Phil’s looked like. Phil had also once enjoyed seeing other people’s marks, but he’d tended to stop asking in recent years, afraid he’d be forced to reveal his own developing stain.

Most of the responses were similar to his cousin’s - pity, sympathy, regret on Phil’s behalf. He didn’t appreciate it.

It was interesting to him that no one even questioned what the blackness meant. It seemed universally agreed that black equated to death, and that was that. The only person who still insisted that his mark in no way had to mean his soulmate was dead was PJ, Phil’s oldest friend, colleague, and all-round partner in crime.

“Maybe you’re destined to date a goth,” was his joke of the day, accompanied by his signature grin.

Phil couldn’t help but smile back, even if it was only at the fact PJ still tried to make light of the situation in order to distract Phil. His attempts were usually quite feeble, but it was more than anyone else did, and Phil would never be able to express how grateful he was to his friend.

“I don’t even want someone to date, you know?” Phil mused, as PJ waited for his reaction. “I just want someone to spend my time with. I don’t want to wind up lonely.”

“Hey,” PJ said, giving him a gentle nudge to the shoulder. “As long as I’m around, you’ll never be lonely, okay?”

Phil looked at his friend’s reassuring smile, and smiled weakly in response.

It was easy for PJ to say that now; he’d only just met his soulmate, and they were still in the tentative first stages of getting to know one another, taking the time to fall in love even though it was all but inevitable anyway. The green leaf-shaped mark on his wrist had led him to a girl with an emerald scarf, a pink heart that belonged to her left foot matching his shoelaces of choice that day. It was rare when two people both had marks that relied on something so fickle as clothing, but Phil only had to spend five minutes in their company to know they’d struck gold.

If they weren’t so perfect for one another, Phil would have been consumed by his envy by now. He wasn’t lying when he spoke of his hopes for a soulmate either. He didn’t want a lover, not if that wasn’t in his destiny. He just wanted a companion, for when the nights were dark and the days felt too long and hard. Phil had such moments very infrequently, but they crept up on him all the same, and having someone in his life to turn to would have been nice.

“Thanks, Peej,” Phil smiled. He didn’t have a soulmate, but he had a good friend, and that would have to be enough.

—

Phil woke up to a gentle tickling sensation on his chest, which was unnerving for two reasons. The first; it was directly where his soulmate mark lay, and he didn’t even want to consider what that meant this early in the morning. Second? He was staying at his parents’ house, and he definitely hadn’t been out last night.  
  
Opening his eyes sleepily but with a hint of wariness, Phil was relieved to find he was still alone in his old bedroom. Which begged the next question: did this have something to do with his soulmate?  
  
It had been six months since the awkward events of Phil’s birthday, and his family members had finally stopped shooting him pitiful looks when even a hint of conversation regarding relationships arose. It was frustrating, because Phil liked to think he’d still find someone at some point, and just because it hadn’t happened yet, it didn’t mean it never would. He’d learned to put up with it though, because nothing was about to change.  
  
Except now his soulmate mark was definitely tickling, almost a tingling, and Phil had read about this, christ, he’d read every damn study ever published on soulmate marks, and on the rare occasions people felt their soulmate marks like this, it meant they were meeting said soulmate soon. And they were probably the strongest of matches.  
  
In all honesty, Phil would have loved to roll over and go back to sleep. He couldn’t exactly tell anyone, _hey, that soulmate I thought was dead? I might be meeting his body today_ , and really he just didn’t want to deal with all of that. Sleep was tempting because it didn’t require him to think, at all, but it was also not an option, because he had things to do.  
  
As much as he enjoyed taking off to his parents’ house every so often for a long weekend, he still had a job and chores to do, and his parents didn’t live far enough away for this to amount to a real holiday and thereby assuage Phil of his guilt.  
  
With that in mind, Phil reluctantly stumbled out of bed and into the shower, thinking maybe he could wash away the sensation of his mark. Unlikely, but worth a shot.  
  
By the time Phil left the house, he’d tripped over the shower curtain twice, put mismatching shoes on first time around, and had to concede the result of today’s battle with his hair as a loss. Suffice to say, Phil was in a horrible mood, which was only made worse by the swarms of weekend shoppers milling around the city and the sheer impossibility of finding a parking space that wasn’t on the eighth storey of the car park. The air felt thick and grubby, there were too many bodies around him, and Phil just wanted to run his errands and get back home as soon as he could.

Thankfully the whole ordeal only took just over an hour, so armed with a new shirt and shoes for the formal work event he had coming up in a month, a new tshirt just because he needed something to make him smile, and some food and necessities his mum had asked him to pick up, Phil headed back to his car breathing out a sigh of relief.

He hadn’t realised at the time - too busy breathing fire - but he’d reversed his car a fair way back in the spot, so he had to do a little shuffle to get into his boot, which was very unattractive and more than a little uncomfortable.

Cramming his purchases in with a millimetre of space between himself and the barrier was not an easy task, especially as his shoebox was refusing to cave at all. He’d already squashed the bananas to an inedible mess, and his tshirt was bundled into a tight ball. With a huff, Phil leaned on one of the paper bags in a last ditch effort to make it all fit, but with the little puff of air it created, his receipt flew straight out.

“Really?” Phil grumbled, rolling his eyes and lunging for the little slip of paper to retrieve it again.

With his leg pressed against the barrier, Phil’s fingers grasped at the air trying to catch the receipt, but in doing so, his balance was lost. For a brief moment, Phil’s arms turned into propellers, frantically trying to right himself, and then he was sailing off the edge of an _eight storey car park_ and heading towards inevitable death.

Phil screamed, as he felt he had every right to do, and squeezed his eyes shut. The wind was rushing past his face, and he didn’t want to see the road below approaching him at such an alarming rate. For a second, he felt like a ragdoll, buffeted about by the wind, not having a clue which way was up or down, and he prayed that maybe he’d drop lucky and faint before the worst. And then just as he’d accepted his fate, a pair of arms had wound tightly round his waist and he was suddenly soaring straight back up again.

Opening his eyes in shock, Phil faintly registered that he was heading towards the clouds, an impossibly beautiful man holding him close to his body, and _were they flying?_ That was when he passed out.

—

“Please, please don’t be dead. It would be really annoying if I’d waited this many hundreds of years to find you, and then you went and snuffed it.”

Phil frowned, feeling like all of his senses were being invaded at once.

There was light piercing his eyelids, even though he couldn’t work out why they’d be closed in the first place. The worried voice from next to him had a backdrop of, what was that, wind? Phil wasn’t sure why it would be wind, but it did seem to be whistling around. The ground was hard beneath him, and as he slowly came to, Phil realised he was lying on cold gravel, which honestly raised all manner of new questions.

“Hmm,” he groaned, trying to open his eyes and being assaulted by the sun.

He sat up quickly to try and assess where he was, instantly regretting it as the world, blurry already, swam around him.

“Not a good idea,” said the voice again, gently pushing him back down.

For the first time, Phil realised his head was cushioned on something other than gravel, and when the owner of the mystery voice leaned closer, he blocked out the sun and Phil was finally able to take in where he was.

Admittedly, being able to see didn’t shed much light on the situation, because most of Phil’s vision was obscured by the handsome face peering down at him, eyes crinkled and friendly even as he chewed on his lip nervously.

“There they are,” the man smiled, and Phil didn’t know what he was talking about, but decided that was the least of his worries.

He wasn’t even sure what his biggest worry was supposed to be.

Was it that he was currently under the care of a complete stranger? Was it that he had no idea where he was, and mildly afraid that he was a little closer to the clouds than he usually was? Was it that he felt like he’d passed out and yet a quick shuffle of all his limbs suggested he was fine?

A brief memory of toppling through the air only to be swept up by a man who looked very similar to his current companion floated into Phil’s head, and he frowned again, then laughed.

“I’m dreaming, right?” he sighed, pleased he’d figured it out.

He didn’t lucid dream very often, and this was incredibly detailed even for his imagination, but it still explained away the location, the mystery man, _the flying_.

“Sorry to disappoint,” the man smiled wryly, sitting back a bit and giving Phil some space. “I’m pretty real.”

Phil blinked, and a very, very long moment of silence passed between them.

“What?”

The man chuckled, and then sat back, clearly getting himself comfortable. Phil straightened up, feeling like maybe he should get himself comfortable too.

“That seems like quite a general question. We’ll probably make better progress if we narrow it down.”

Phil glared at him. They didn’t even know each other, Phil didn’t even know his name, and the guy was being a sarcastic little shit.

“Who the hell are you?” Phil bit out, affronted.

“Did I ruffle some feathers?” the man teased, and then paused. “That will be funny eventually, we’ll come back to it.”

“Who are you? And where have you brought me?”

“We’re just on the roof of the carpark, relax,” the man said, holding up his hands in defence. “I’m Dan. And I think I might be your soulmate.”

—

And breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Phil put his shaking hands out in front of him, to try and steady himself, taking great shuddering breaths as he leaned against the door of his old bedroom and tried to sort through everything in his head. This was how he liked to work, he liked to be methodical, make sense of things, and when things didn’t make sense, he didn’t like it.

The joy of growing up, he thought to himself bitterly, was that there was no longer room for things not to make sense.

His life was mapped out. He knew where it was going. There was some space for surprise, for movement, but generally it was a decent plan, his family approved, he was happy, and that was that.

Everything had a purpose and a place, and everything fit into Phil’s view of the world.

Except Dan.

“Phil, sweetheart? Everything okay?” his mum called through the door suddenly, startling him and jangling his already stretched nerves.

“Yeah, fine,” he said breathlessly, pulling the door open and making her jump as well. “Work have called me in though, so I’m going to have go back a few days early. Might head off after lunch, if that’s okay?”

“Of course it is,” his mum smiled, but her brows were furrowed as if she could tell something was amiss. “Sure everything is alright?”

“Honestly, I’m fine,” Phil tried to grin, and he couldn’t believe that at halfway to twenty six, he was still lying to his mum about how he felt.

“Right, I’ll go and get some food started then. See you in a minute,” she said, clearly deciding that even if something was wrong with her son, she wasn’t getting an answer out of him.

“In a minute,” Phil nodded, and then closed his door again to lean on it.

He needed to pack. He needed to pack the little suitcase he’d hauled up for the long weekend, and then he needed to get home where he could be alone with his thoughts, and then he could try and process what was happening, and how to deal with the day’s events.

His soulmate was dead. He had always known this. And now some stranger was daring to give him hope that that wasn’t true, and _it wasn’t fair_. Because this stranger didn’t have a soulmate mark, and he couldn’t give Phil the answers he wanted, and he found the whole situation hilarious while Phil just wanted to curl into a ball and pretend nothing had happened.

That was why he needed home. He needed home, and space, and quiet, and then he could begin to think this through.

As Phil began to fold his stuff up and retrieve the items he’d strewn across his room in such a short space of time, he thought back to his conversation with this Dan.

It hadn’t been particularly long, but Phil suspected he would be running over the words nonstop for the foreseeable future.

_“How can you know I’m your soulmate?”_

_“I had a feeling.”_

_“A feeling?”_

_“It’s hard to explain. Especially because you can’t see them.”_

_“See what?”_

_“You’d know. I promise, you’d know.”_

_“What are you talking about? Let me see your soulmate mark.”_

_“You can’t see it.”_

_“What do you mean, I can’t see it? I can show you mine. Mine, that clearly has nothing to do with you.”_

_“I mean, it’s impossible for you to see it right now. I’m sorry. Please trust me.”_

_“My soulmate is dead,” Phil had whispered, shaking his head. “Get away from me. Leave me alone. This isn’t funny.”_

Phil had scrambled away then, dusting himself off and heading for his car several storeys down, wondering when he reached it, found it with the boot still open and his keys on the front seat, if he’d dreamed all of this. The boy had simply watched him go, a sad look on his face, but Phil couldn’t care less. He wasn’t going to wait around to talk to a man who only spoke in riddles and claimed to be something Phil had already grieved for.

The man wasn’t his soulmate.

This was what Phil told himself as he said hurried goodbyes to his family, drove back to the centre of London, unlocked the front door to his apartment, and collapsed on his sofa with a huff.

The man wasn’t his soulmate. And the fact his soulmate mark was still tingling meant nothing.

—

Brown eyes.

Wide brown eyes that peered down at him curiously, his excited expression fading into one of concern and sadness.

Gentle touches, a soft voice, a smile…

Phil sat bolt upright, his breathing ragged, a hand clutched to his chest. Just over his soulmate mark. The mark that felt like it was being branded into his skin right now.

“Fuck,” Phil breathed out, trying to calm down.

A clumsy fumble around for his phone told him it was three in the morning, so he’d only been asleep for a few hours at most.

Phil had spent the entire afternoon pacing his flat. He very rarely had such crises, given his level head and his reasonably straightforward life, but this was just on another level.

For all he wanted to just condemn this Dan person as raving mad, there was a small part of him that dared to suggest he’d been telling the truth.

He’d rescued Phil hadn’t he? Somehow known that he was in trouble, and yet… had they really been flying? He _had_ just flung himself into the atmosphere, so it was entirely possible he’d been hallucinating.

Of course you weren’t flying, you idiot, Phil thought to himself.

This was all one giant coincidence. Dan had saved him, and Phil had probably bumped his head or something. The fact his soulmate mark had soothed for the first time all day when he was in Dan’s presence was just ‘one of those things’, and the fact opening his eyes to Dan’s had made his heart flutter was just by chance, and not being able to get Dan out of his head now, dreaming of the boy, that was just… well it was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Dan wasn’t his soulmate, because Phil didn’t have a soulmate.

He was dead, and Phil was okay with that.

End of story.

—

Apparently the universe had other ideas.

From the day he met Dan, it seemed nothing was going to be the same again.

For starters, his soulmate mark now tingled every day. In fact, it never stopped. It was just a constant feeling that Phil suspected he was going to have to get used to. As if it weren’t enough that the black stain was a visible reminder every time he caught his shirtless body in the mirror, now Phil had to suffer with a physical reminder for the rest of the time too.

Focusing on work became a nightmare, sleep became restless and ultimately pointless, and even when relaxing Phil couldn’t switch his brain off entirely because his thoughts always drifted to the space over his heart.

Phil had thought this was the worst it was going to get, but he was wrong.

One morning he woke up and his mark was so frustrating he resorted to scratching it, trying to get rid of an itch that didn’t exist. And that was the day he thought he caught Dan’s eye across the road in a busy crowd of people, eyes he’d come to realise he unfortunately had no hope of forgetting.

The next day, his mark was just as bad, and he caught sight of a figure retreating from a cafe he stopped in for his lunch, a figure that looked a lot like his uninvited saviour from the other day.

That thought often caught Phil unawares too. Because if he believed any of that had actually happened, did that mean Dan was responsible for saving his life? Did that mean Phil _owed_ him? All Phil felt towards Dan at the moment was annoyance that grew by the day, worry that he was becoming some sort of stalker, and a begrudging curiosity as to who Dan really was.

The days continued like this, drifting into weeks.

Eventually Phil concluded it was, without doubt, Dan shadowing him, and on occasion he had called him out on it.

“Why are you here? Why are you following me?”

“I’m not trying to,” Dan said in a sort of strangled voice, as if he wasn’t really saying what he wanted to. “I can’t really help it.”

“Yes you can,” Phil had said frustratedly, annoyed that they were in the library so he had to keep his voice down.

“I’m sorry,” Dan had said, and then he’d disappeared again.

Sometimes Phil wouldn’t see him for days at a time, which was blissful, because his soulmate mark wasn’t as noisy. Other days, Phil would see him several times, in specific places or just wandering around.

It was like Dan had become a constant, and Phil didn’t appreciate that at all, because he didn’t want Dan to be a constant. He didn’t want to start thinking of Dan becoming a permanent fixture, because he had made peace with his lack of soulmate, and getting his hopes up was about the most dangerous thing he could do, second only to the times he allowed himself to engage in brief small talk with the man, and found himself laughing.

The whole situation was confusing, and Phil wanted out of it, but it seemed he had absolutely no say in the matter.

—

It was a Saturday morning, and Phil’s soulmate mark was feeling particularly irritable today.

By now, he’d guessed this meant he’d probably run into Dan at some point today, and that caused all sorts of internal battles in his head.

Of course, he longed for Dan to be his soulmate. He wanted a soulmate more than anything, wanted one more than most because he’d been denied of it before he even had chance to meet them. And if Phil had to put together a perfect soulmate for himself, he suspected Dan wouldn’t be far off.

He’d made Phil laugh on occasion. He certainly scrubbed up nicely. There was something behind his young eyes that hinted at a wisdom beyond his years, and Phil was starting to want to find out more about that. He just couldn’t trust him though.

Something didn’t add up. And how could Phil be soulmates with someone he didn’t trust?

“One Americano, sit in,” the barista called, and Phil headed over to the counter to pick up his drink.

He’d had a particularly gruelling week at work, and felt like he deserved a morning to himself. His plan was to start the morning in the coffee shop, with a large drink and a criminally sweet pastry, and then he was heading to the cinemas to catch a film, where he would inevitably increase his sugar intake further with a huge bucket of popcorn.

“Cheers,” he said gratefully as he took his drink, sprinkling some loose change in the tips jar.

The coffee shop was fairly lively, but not too busy. His favourite table looked to be free, so Phil picked up his tray and headed over to the window, only to round the corner and find someone else sat there.

The man looked up at him as Phil went to approach the table then stopped in his tracks, and smiled almost apologetically.

“I did warn you,” Dan said, shrugging.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Phil hissed at him, not wanting to draw too much attention, trying to ignore the slightly sad feeling he got when he considered Dan actually leaving for good. Not that it was likely to happen, mind.

“I told you, I physically can’t,” Dan said helplessly, spreading his palms wide.

“Why not?” Phil asked, biting the bullet and sliding into the seat opposite Dan, placing his tray on the table and starting to stir some milk into his coffee, making it quite clear that he was going nowhere this time. “Tell me. Whatever it is you’re not telling me, this is your moment.”

Dan blinked at him, and then shook his head.

“I’m not sure you’re ready,” he frowned.

“Try me,” Phil said coolly.

He didn’t care anymore. Didn’t care if Dan was a fugitive, had a troubled past, was a mass murderer. He needed to know Dan’s secret, so he could decide once and for all what he was going to do with the problem that was Dan. Because he was a problem. Phil couldn’t stop thinking about him, at work, at home, even in his dreams, and everywhere Phil turned, Dan seemed to be there. He couldn’t escape him, so maybe it was time to start believing in his soulmate after all, especially given that every time Phil drew closer to Dan, his soulmate mark calmed down.

If Dan really was his soulmate, he would show Phil his own mark, and then they could hopefully work through everything together. And in time, Phil might actually forgive him for leaving him in the dark for so long.

“Okay,” Dan nodded, and took a steadying breath. Phil tensed, pausing taking a sip of his coffee because it seemed like Dan was actually going to tell him this time. “You can’t see my soulmate mark, because it makes up a bigger part of me that you can’t see either.”

“What can’t I see?” Phil asked, willing, for once, to play along with Dan’s riddles.

“My wings.”

 _Phil faintly registered that he was heading towards the clouds, an impossibly beautiful man holding him close to his body, and_ were they flying?

_“We’re just on the roof of the carpark, relax.”_

_“It’s hard to explain. Especially because you can’t see them.”_

“What?” Phil whispered, his mind racing through a million scenarios at once as he tried to process what Dan had said. And maybe that was most terrifying of all; the fact he was even trying to process those words of insanity in the first place.

“I have wings. Your world hasn’t given me a name, but the closest thing you’ve probably heard of is a phoenix. In total, I’m probably over three hundred years old, and this is the first lifetime I’ve ever found my soulmate in.”

_“It would be really annoying if I’d waited this many hundreds of years to find you, and then you went and snuffed it.”_

Phil gulped, willing himself to stay calm and rational about this whole situation. He took a sip of coffee to soothe his nerves, as Dan watched him patiently.

“Phoenixes aren’t real. They’re a myth,” Phil said, and his voice was incredibly calm given that his insides were rioting.

“No, they aren’t. But I am. I promise.”

Phil blinked, and then exploded.

“How the hell am I supposed to believe that, Dan? How do you expect me to just sit here and calmly accept that yes, sure, you have _wings_? Wings that I can’t see, that I’ve never seen.”

Phil didn’t know what to do. Part of him wanted to run out of this cafe right now, run and keep running until he was far enough away that he never had to see Dan ever again. Because Dan was insane, right? He had completely lost it. He was living in a different universe to Phil. People didn’t have wings. People didn’t have them, or claim to have them, because they didn’t exist. And yet Phil couldn’t move, rooted to his chair and almost wanting to learn more.

“Let me explain,” Dan said calmly, as if he’d expected this reaction. Truthfully, Phil couldn’t imagine a different reaction than this one. “Listen to me, and let me explain. And then if you still won’t at least try to believe me, I’ll stay away from you. Well, I’ll attempt to.”

Phil didn’t miss the way Dan’s voice caught a little at the end, but that was a question for another time. Now he was truly curious to hear Dan’s explanation.

“Okay. Explain.”

So he did.

In a world where all of the fantasy creatures Phil stopped believing in before he hit double digits existed, Dan was something of an outcast. His kind were few and far between; creatures who appeared wholly human save the great wings that spread out behind them, allowing them to soar through the sky as they pleased. Their rarity was their reason for existing - to find their soulmates, to ensure they didn’t die out.

“Soulmate marks exist for us just like they do for you, but not quite in the same way,” Dan said. “While humans are more looking for companionship, ours are meant to be our _mates_ , specifically for breeding.”

Phil recoiled, and Dan chuckled.

“Our biology is rather archaic, but we don’t tend to think like that anymore. At least, I don’t. Others don’t agree with me, which is why over time I’ve found myself pretty lonely, but I don’t like that idea. Until now, I didn’t even have a soulmate mark.”

Not that Dan knew that for sure. Just like a phoenix, he’d lived several lifetimes, slowly crumbling into nothing only to find himself again, same world, different person. He was unable to settle down and live a normal life until he’d found his soulmate, because that was his entire purpose for being. Once he’d done that, he could finally start to grow old and live a half-normal life. But he was quite certain that the mark that had appeared this time round was new.

“Wait, so you’re permanently- how old are you?”

“Twenty-one. And yes, I’m permanently twenty-one.”

“But you said you were hundreds of years old. So how old are you?”

“Well, I can’t remember exactly how old I am, because I can only guess that my past lives have all been hundreds of years long based on what others have told me. In this one though? This one I’m actually twenty-one. It’s really helpful bumping into you like this actually,” he chuckled, but it fell a little flat. It’d be even more helpful if Phil actually believed him, were the unspoken words. “Can’t say for sure, but I imagine living to be over three centuries old grows tiresome.”

Phil raised an eyebrow, but allowed him to continue. If he was going to run with this creation, Phil wanted to know every aspect of it.

Dan didn’t have a family, or a gathering as he called it. His kind were fairly solitary anyway, not deeming a relationship of much importance if it wasn’t _the_ relationship. Dan’s aspirations to find more than just a mate had soured things further, and he couldn’t remember exactly when he’d been banished from his particular gathering, but it had been a long while back.

For the most part, he lived life as a normal twenty-one year old when he could. Dan had odd acquaintances in his own world, who checked in with him now and again, and vice versa. Each time he was reborn, it was important that there was someone close by who could help guide him back to the world, and sometimes Dan filled that role for others too.

Phil listened to it all, and then took a deep breath and a sip of his long-forgotten coffee.

“Say, for a moment, I believed you,” Phil said, and he didn’t miss the way Dan’s eyes lit up. “Why can’t _I_ see your wings, if I’m your soulmate?”

“You’re not one of us,” Dan shrugged.

“But what if I wanted to see them?” Phil frowned. “Surely there’s a way.”

“Of course there is,” Dan said reluctantly. “But, you know…”

“No, I don’t,” Phil said shortly. “Know what?”

“I don’t think it’ll work.”

“Why, what do you have to do?”

Dan smiled, sort of sadly.

“It’s not something I have to do. It’s on you. You have to believe me.”

“I just suggested that I believed you,” Phil said, puzzled.

“That’s not enough,” Dan said, shaking his head. “You have to really be convinced that we exist. It has to be a deep-seated assurance that vampires, werewolves, angels, every fantastical creature you’ve ever read about, that we exist. You can’t just wish it were true. You have to know it to be true.

“That’s why so few people realise. That’s why faeries stay invisible, and you can’t see shapeshifters in any form besides their human one. That’s why you can’t see my wings; because you don’t think they’re there. Not really.”

Phil listened to Dan’s explanation, feeling something tug at his heart.

A distant memory of a boy watching fantasy shows late into the night, far past his bedtime, the only light source the glow of the television his eyes were trained on. His conviction that the characters from those shows existed, his desperation to prove it to everyone. The boy had shelves upon shelves of books about every creature he’d ever heard a whisper of, and he was so certain he could see them sometimes, so heartbroken that no one believed him.

And then Phil blinked, because that was twenty years ago, and real life didn’t allow for fantasy daydreams. It only allowed for the cold, hard truth, and Dan’s existence was that, but his wings were not.

“You still can’t see them,” Dan said, and it wasn’t even a question.

Phil looked at him, watched his earnest eyes, and made a spontaneous decision that didn’t fit in with his normal way of life at all.

“I can’t see them. But I want to believe you. And even though I can’t see it, I want to believe that you’re telling the truth about your soulmate mark.”

“Phil,” Dan started, reaching out to place a hand on Phil’s before thinking better of himself and going to draw it away. “I promise you that I am.”

“I’ll trust you then,” Phil said, catching Dan’s hand before he could.

Dan beamed at him, and Phil felt the edges of his mouth pulling up too. This was all so surreal for him; he had never dreamed he’d ever find his soulmate, and now he was having to go along with what sounded like the wildest of fairytales just to get to know someone who had no way to prove he was meant for Phil.

There was something about Dan though. Something about the honesty in his voice and earnest expression in his eyes, and Phil decided that even if this didn’t end the way he wanted to, perhaps taking a little risk wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

“I don’t know if you have any plans for later, but if not, would you like to catch a film with me?”

—

“Okay, new question.”

“What a surprise,” Dan snickered.

Phil glared at him. It had been a month since the coffee shop confession that had marked the turning point of their relationship. Desperate to believe Dan, Phil had agreed to try and stop avoiding him. In fact, they’d gone in the other direction; he was unsure as to whether he’d term it _dating_ just yet, but Phil was definitely spending a lot of his time with Dan. Most of his time, really.

He’d decided that even if Dan wasn’t his soulmate, it wasn’t like he had someone else to seek out anyway, so he’d be very happy if Dan was as good as it got. He just had to hope that Dan wouldn’t find his real soulmate in the meantime.

“What’s that meant to mean?” Phil huffed.

“Just that you have a new question every time we see each other,” Dan pointed out. “This is why I prefer the cinema over restaurants, because you have to be quiet.”

Phil’s frown deepened, only making Dan laugh more. He stole a chip from Dan’s plate, just to prove a point, which Dan responded to by picking Phil’s glass up and promptly downing the rest of his drink in one.

“I hate you,” Phil managed to wheeze out, clutching his stomach as he laughed uncontrollably.

After Dan had ordered them fresh drinks and a glass of water so Phil didn’t die, he fixed his gaze on Phil again.

“Go on then. What is today’s question?”

“Don’t laugh.”

“I will almost definitely now laugh.”

“So no one can see your wings, but they still exist right?”

“Currently our biggest point of contention,” Dan frowned, motioning behind him, which still remained a blank space for Phil.

“No but, they still have presence. They’re still there,” Phil explained. “So don’t you like, I don’t know, take people out with them all the time?”

Now it was Dan’s turn to roar with laughter, throwing his head back and trying desperately to take a breath in between his chuckles. Phil handed his half-empty glass of water to him, and Dan downed it gratefully, wiping tears from his eyes as he finally calmed down.

“No,” Dan breathed out, shaking his head. “No, I don’t take people out with my wings. Oh, Phil, oh my god, you’re too funny.”

“So what happens?” Phil asked, biting down on his burger pointedly as if to emphasise that he was impatient and growing tired of being laughed at.

“Well, I don’t constantly walk around with my wings fully spread out,” Dan began, reaching across to wipe away a stray splodge of mayonnaise from where it had landed on Phil’s cheek after the violent mouthful he’d taken. “That would be very uncomfortable, and yes, technically you’re right, I would ‘take people out’. They’re fairly easy to draw in close to me. Plus humans have an inbuilt instinct to give me some space.”

“I see,” Phil said thoughtfully.

“No you don’t,” Dan said, half-teasing, half-not. “But you will.”

“What colour are they?” Phil asked, trying to move the conversation along. Each time Dan expressed his sadness at Phil not being able to see his wings, Phil felt even worse.

It was like he didn’t believe in Dan himself, but that wasn’t true. He believed in Dan, in the man who had stumbled into his life, and against all the odds, sort of made sense. But his head just couldn’t make the adjustment to believing in his wings. Believing in the supernatural. He just couldn’t do it anymore, and he’d tried so hard.

“Not telling you,” Dan said in a sing-song voice, looking at Phil smugly.

“Tell me,” Phil grumbled.

“Show me your soulmate mark,” Dan challenged, bringing Phil up on a topic he knew riled him.

“I told you you can’t see mine until I can see yours,” Phil huffed. “Why won’t you tell me what colour your wings are?”

“I enjoy annoying you too much,” Dan admitted. Phil threw a chip at him.

—

“You never fly,” Phil said one day, as they sat on a park bench looking out across the small lake.

“What do you mean?” Dan asked, bemused.

“You say you have wings but you never use them,” he said thoughtfully, turning to Dan. “Why?”

“Seriously, Phil?” Dan laughed. “Flying is such _effort_. Even walking is a stretch sometimes, why would I voluntarily make moving myself harder than it needs to be?”

Phil’s immediate response was to wallop Dan in the stomach, making him splutter and turn accusingly to Phil.

“That is such a waste!” Phil scolded. “If I had wings, I don’t think I’d ever touch the ground again!”

“Well, that’s because you’re you, and I’m me,” Dan shrugged. “We’re different. I use them when necessary.”

“And when’s that?” Phil asked sceptically.

“Hmm, let’s see,” Dan said dryly, and Phil realised where this was going, couldn’t believe he’d left himself wide open for it. “Maybe when idiots fling themselves out of multi-storey car parks?”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Phil grumbled.

“My point still stands,” Dan informed him.

They sat in silence again after that, gazing out at the peaceful scene before them. There were very few people in the park at this time, the crisp Sunday morning air threatening to bite at their gloved hands. The lake was calm, just an occasional ripple that disturbed the moss and reeds that grew on and around it, and the only sound was the rustling of the trees and the birds.

“I don’t fly in front of you because I’m scared,” Dan said quietly after a moment.

“What do you mean?” Phil asked, looking at him again, and gently coaxing Dan to look round at him too.

“What if I fly, what if I hover a foot above you, and you still can’t see my wings? You still don’t believe me? Then what do I do? I’ve failed. I’ve failed, and how are we supposed to be soulmates when you can’t see such a huge part of me?”

Dan looked down and away, his voice breaking, and Phil’s heart tore a little.

“I’m trying, Dan,” Phil said, taking his hand and squeezing it tightly. “I promise I’m trying.”

“I know,” Dan whispered, turning to face Phil and letting the man wipe away his stray tear. “I know.”

—

Two weeks later, Phil got a phone call. Dan was with him, and held him as he broke a little.

Three weeks later, Phil was at the funeral. Dan was not with him, and Phil really, really wished he was.

Watching his aunt grieve for his uncle was a very strange feeling for Phil.

It hurt, because she was family. Phil’s family were close-knit, and losing his uncle was hard on all of them. Now, they were all desperately trying to piece his aunt back together, but today was never going to be easy. Watching her cry, watching her physically not being able to stop the tears, made Phil sad.

Because she lost her soulmate. And Phil found himself drifting towards his own grief once again, his own gaping hole in his life where his soulmate was supposed to be.

He pushed these thoughts aside while he was at the funeral. He stayed strong, for his father who was struggling to comprehend that he had lost his brother so unexpectedly, for his cousins who were going through something Phil couldn’t even begin to understand, and for everyone else who came up to him and thanked him for being so strong on a day like this.

Strong, Phil scoffed. He was a wreck inside, he’d just had years of practice at putting on a stoic face and pretending he was fine.

So the day dragged on, and the weight on Phil’s chest just got heavier and heavier, until it grew dark outside, and Phil was finally allowed to escape home, so he could be alone with his feelings. Funerals were not his thing and never would be; as an intensely private person, who for the most part projected an unwaveringly positive image of himself on the world, Phil did not want to grieve with others.

His mum had understood when he’d informed her that he wouldn’t be stopping over with them, that he’d prefer to just go home and be with his thoughts.

With a quick text to PJ to let him know he was okay and had survived the day, Phil set off home, the lonely feeling only increasing as he navigated the winding country roads back into the city with only his car headlights for company.

By the time he’d reached his front door, Phil felt exhausted. By the time he’d kicked his shoes off and landed on to his bed, Phil had given up.

He sobbed.

He curled up into himself, and cried so loudly it almost felt like he wasn’t so alone for a moment. His eyes were sore, and his cheeks felt puffy, and he still cried.

Someone had lost their soulmate today, and that wasn’t fair.

Phil had never found his soulmate, and that wasn’t fair either.

_“I know you probably can’t imagine how lonely it feels to wander around for so long, feeling so lost and alone, wondering if there actually isn’t anyone out there,” Dan had started one day, but Phil had interrupted him._

_“I do,” Phil said, shaking his head. “I do.”_

The grief he had locked away so tightly for so long came pouring out, crashing over him and making the darkness of his bedroom ever more black.

God, he wanted Dan to be his soulmate so badly, but how could that possibly work?

Phil finally believed that Dan was telling the truth. Dan had wings. And yet, Phil still couldn’t see them. Such a vital element of their relationship was missing, and even if Dan did have those wings, did have a soulmate mark that Phil couldn’t see, how were they supposed to overcome an obstacle so great as Phil not truly believing in Dan’s existence?

It wasn’t fair.

Phil had spent so long coming to terms with his soulmate not being around. He had been fine with it. And now he’d been presented with Dan, someone so perfect and yet almost impossible to be with, and this was almost harder. He’d never known the soulmate he grieved for, but he knew Dan, he was falling in love with Dan, and losing him was going to be so much worse.

Phil hated it, hated it all. Hated the idea of soulmates and soulmate marks. Hated how loss could feel so deep, so consuming, when all it left behind was empty. Hated that when he placed a hand on his racing heart, he could feel the black stain that lay beneath it, a constant reminder of his inevitable loneliness.

With a shuddering gasp, Phil clambered off the bed, suddenly, desperately needing air.

Throwing his window open, he stepped out on to the tiny balcony his apartment afforded him, and leaned on the railing, letting his head fall and closing his eyes. The city sounds were loud and comforting, the lights bright behind his closed eyelids, and he just wanted to lose himself in it. The cold night air hugged him, but that was better than the sadness from before.

Why couldn’t Dan be his soulmate? Why couldn’t it be him?

Phil felt more tears begin to fall as he stood out on the balcony and asked himself the same question over and over again.

The more he thought about it, the more he just wanted the man there, in that moment. He would take not being Dan’s soulmate for a moment, if he could just have Dan himself. Dan’s warms arms around him, his soothing words in Phil’s ear, the warmth of his body making Phil feel whole again.

Dan wasn’t here though. Phil didn’t know where he was, and even if he did, he had no way of contacting him, and Dan had no way of getting to Phil’s apartment. It was a foolish wish, and yet he couldn’t shake it.

It made it worse, to think Phil needed him now, the same way he’d obviously needed him the first day they met. And Dan had assured him, assured him, that he’d only saved Phil because he’d sensed he was in trouble and needed to be rescued. Well, Phil needed to be rescued right now too, and Dan was nowhere in sight, so the link Phil had been relying on to remind him of their connection, that was just a fluke too.

Why wasn’t he here? Phil thought bitterly.

“Why aren’t you here?” he yelled out into the sky, his voice drowned out by a city that didn’t sleep.

“I am.”

Phil whirled round, so fast he felt dizzy, to find Dan stood on his balcony, arms opened for him.

Eyes misty with tears, Phil ran to him, falling into Dan and falling apart at the same time, letting Dan hold him up, fix him back together.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” Dan whispered into his hair, pressing gentle kisses to his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. “But I’m here now. I’m here.”

They stood like that for an immeasurable amount of time, Dan just murmuring to Phil, holding him, letting Phil cry himself out until all that remained were shallow breaths and tired eyes.

As he became more aware of what was happening, Phil realised he felt very warm. Warmer than usual. Warm, and safe, and calm, and he didn’t understand, but he knew it was just being in Dan’s arms that made him feel that way.

And in a strange way, a sense of peace suddenly settled over him, almost as quickly as the sadness had consumed him before. Because if he could feel at home in Dan’s arms, then he could live with that. Dan was, in Phil’s eyes, the soulmate he’d always felt like he would have, and if Dan was certain that they were indeed soulmates, Phil could learn to trust him.

“Dan,” Phil said, stepping back and blinking, ready to inform him of his sudden epiphany. “I think-”

Phil looked up at the other man, his words forgotten as he blinked at him.

“Phil? What is it?” Dan asked worriedly, his eyes searching Phil’s to try and find out what was wrong.

Nothing was _wrong_ , though. Not really.

Different? Very different.

Because in front of Phil stood the Dan he was very much used to seeing, the Dan who made his stomach somersault, who made him smile when he wasn’t even around. But there was something else, something Phil had never expected and yet had expected all along.

Two huge wings spread out behind him, softly beating up and down, spreading across Phil’s balcony and beyond. They were absolutely magnificent, and made Dan into a terrible, beautiful silhouette against the city skyline.

“Phil,” Dan asked softly, still concerned.

“They’re black,” Phil whispered, reaching out to touch them and then pulling his hand away again, unsure. “Your wings are black.”

Dan listened to him, and Phil watched every second of his realisation. His eyes widened, his mouth falling open a little, and his wings, his incredible, ebony wings beat a little faster.

“You can see them?” Dan asked, as if he didn’t dare believe what he thought Phil meant.

“They’re black,” Phil just repeated, and then he was ripping off the jacket he still wore, casting his tie off to the side so he could tear open the first few buttons of his shirt and show Dan the black mark that he had hated for so long, that now represented the most important thing about the person destined to be in his life.

“And yours are blue,” Dan smiled, stepping closer to Phil and pulling one of his wings in a little closer.

There, near the edge of the wing, close to his shoulder, was a single blue feather. It was a vivid blue, the same blue Phil was very used to seeing in the mirror when he looked at his reflection every time he was happy, excited, _content_.

Slowly but surely, the reality of the situation sank in.

Dan was warm, because Dan had wings. Wings that Phil could see. Wings that could protect him, and had already done so twice now.

“You’re real,” Phil said shakily, finally extending an arm out enough to brush against the edge of one of his wings gently, marvelling at the soft feathers beneath his fingertips.

“And I think I might be your soulmate,” said Dan, edging closer to Phil and splaying a hand across the black mark on Phil’s chest, no longer a stain but a piece of art.

With a grin, Phil pulled Dan close suddenly, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips that ended too soon as they started to smile again, and then held him tightly, arms wrapping around Dan’s waist as he felt Dan’s around his shoulders, his wings curling around them too.

“I believe you are.”

**Author's Note:**

> i commissioned my dear pinofs to produce the most beautiful artwork for this piece, which you can find [here](http://pinofs.tumblr.com/post/148605087030) \- please give it all of the love!
> 
> this was very much inspired by one of my favourite songs, wings by hurts, which is where i took inspiration for the title from too.


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